Publication

An article written by Gemma Porzgen, German journalist, based on the results of European thought leaders’ visit to Ukraine which was organized by the Institute of World Policy in partnership with CIDOB.The shorter version of this article was published on “Evropeiska Pravda” (in Ukrainian).

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute of World Policy.

If you look into German newspapers these days, you will not find news from the Ukraine on the frontline pages anymore. The NSA-scandal, repeated train-strikes and the situation of refugees in the EU dominate the news. The Ukraine is not a big topic anymore, ever since the Minsk agreement, which helped to calm things down to a certain extent from the German perspective. The fear of a possible escalation leading to a bigger European war has vanished so far.
The narrative of the ongoing Ukrainian war and internal political developments has become more difficult to tell. Very few German journalists are sent to Ukraine to report. The German public seems to have returned to the same indifferent attitude that it had in the past, perhaps with a little more basic knowledge about Ukraine.
Apart from Poland and the Baltic states, the perception of the Ukraine is quite similar in other EU-member states. Internal politics play the major role and conflicts which seem to affect national interests get attention for a little while in crisis-reporting, but there is very little interest in deeper analysis of what is going on in domestic policy in Ukraine.
The German debate about the so-called “Ukrainian crisis” started almost two years ago, a debate about a country that most Germans did not know and the media had not paid a lot of attention to. The Ukraine was still a blank spot to most German newsrooms and the German public.
Experts in Brussels and in Berlin had been discussing the EU-Stabilization and Association Agreement for months in 2013, but there was nearly no media coverage about this political debate in Germany. The “No” of President Janukovic and the start of protests on Maidan came by total surprise to most of the German Media and the population. Nobody was prepared for what was going to happen in Ukraine.
There was a lack of basic historical knowledge, which was evident in many opinion-pieces by famous German journalists or politicians. The most prominent example was former chancellor Helmut Schmidt who claimed that Ukraine was no nation in May 2014. But also Heribert Prantl, one of the prestigious German columnists on internal politics in “Süddeutsche Zeitung” showed his deep lack of historical understanding. He wrote an editorial about President Joachim Gaucks speech on the 1. September 2014 in Poland, called “The reckless president”. Prantl criticized that Gauck did not mention the 30 million Soviet victims of war and the Russian trauma of World War II in his speech. Judging by this article, Prantls failed to understand that there were not only Russians at that time, but also Ukrainians, Belarus and other Soviet citizens among the 30 million victims. Consequently, Prantls view was very typical for the mindset of ordinary Germans, who were raised in Western Germany and for whom Russia was always a synonym for the Soviet Union and later its successor.
25 years after the fall of the iron curtain there is still a lack of understanding and attention for other post-soviet countries than Russia. Just like we had a “Russia First” Foreign Policy in Germany, we had a “Russia First” perspective of many opinion makers in the media, combined with a lack of profound knowledge about the region.
This was also reflected in the lack of willingness to send permanent German correspondents to Kiev. Correspondents had been there in the 1990s for news agency like the dpa or “Spiegel”, but since then it seemed sufficient to the German media houses to cover Ukrainian stories from Moscow or Warsaw. To have a correspondent in Moscow was as important as having a correspondent in Washington for ages. In the last few years even this has changed, because important German media have reduced their correspondent network worldwide. Offices in the Russian capital were closed, correspondents sent home, because of the ongoing media crisis. When the protests on Maidan started, there was not even one permanent correspondent of German media in Kiev. There were only three German freelancers based in the Ukrainian capital who covered the ongoing events from inside the country. A lot of coverage was done by correspondents based in Moscow or Warsaw going in and out of the country, some of them very experienced like Konrad Schuller (FAZ) or Gerhard Gnauck (Welt). When events escalated, there were more freelancers and reporters sent to the region, often not knowing the Ukraine from before the conflict and without any knowledge of languages.
There was also a clear tendency in the German media-coverage to comment on the war from far away without having the proper facts together. Talkshows in the TV showed great interest and dealt with the Ukraine more than they did with other Foreign policy issues, but their inviting policy discriminated against Ukrainian participants. In several shows there were only German experts talking with Russian representatives about the Ukraine. The titles were “Russian Roulette” or “Putins powergame – will there be war?” which showed that the main focus was more about the global confrontation with Moscow than looking inside the Ukraine.
Media played the “war-card”, often with the references to the “Cold war”, which showed that there was not sufficient willingness to deal with the new reality of this dangerous conflict in 21.century. Even serious media made people fear that the “Ukrainian crisis” could evoke a bigger war in Europe. This emotional approach was an important angel to hold Ukraine on the front pages for several months and to attract a lot of attention. Sadly, it was more about us than about the Ukraine itself, have to say today.
Since it has become quiet on the war front, the general attention has decreased and there is only very little interest to report on other topics from the Ukraine, like the difficult economical development or reports on the 1,6 million internally displaced people. The media attention has already shifted to other conflicted regions, like we see with the almost forgotten state of Macedonia these days, which has already been accepted by the EU as a candidate for accession to the European Union since 2005, but has not yet entered into accession negotiations. Even this status does not create more interest in following the internal developments, before it comes to violent clashes within the country.
This shows that the Ukrainians need to be very realistic about the way their country is perceived in Germany and other European states. There should not be too many illusions about European realities. Therefore, it seems dangerous to me that parts of the Ukrainian elite raise too high expectations towards the EU and make promises to their population which are difficult to fulfill.
At the summit in Riga the German Chancellor Angela Merkel made very clear that there is no EU-perspective in the near future for Ukraine. This statement does not sound popular in Kiev, but it reflects what is heard as well from EU-representatives in Brussels. And this position is supported by most EU-citizens, for whom the Ukraine is only one country in deep crisis in waiting in line with others like Greece in the EU or the West Balkan States outside the Union.
People inside the European Union do not have a clear picture of what the EU will look like in future years. What is going to happen with Greece and the Euro? Will there be a possible Brexit of Great Britain in 2016 already? How do we deal with African refuges coming over the Mediterranean Sea to Europe? The EU is very far from fulfilling the high “European values” and promises, which some Ukrainian politicians like to bring into the debate.
The only things Ukraine can expect from EU and from its member states is a certain amount of financial, technical and political support for reforms in the country at this point in time. Apart from this, the EU will hopefully keep its consensus by prolonging its sanctions against Moscow in June. But even these will mainly depend on the belief that the Ukrainian President and the Ukrainian government will be committed to a policy of real change and reform.
The initiative has been implemented due to the support:

“Initiative on the think tanks development in Ukraine”, operated by International Renaissance Foundation in partnership with the Think Tank Fund (TTF) and funded by the Embassy of Sweden in Ukraine (SIDA).